VANCOUVER – Governments, employers and unions must all work urgently to address several critical weaknesses in Canada’s employment laws and policies to ensure the re-opening of the economy in the wake of COVID-19 can be safe and sustained.

The province’s May 4 news release reminds us how much the private sector and government finances are being affected by the pandemic, the efforts made to date to ensure our healthcare sector can respond, and claims to be “working together with management, public-sector unions and our front-line workers [. . .] to find creative ways to redirect resources to where they’re needed most [. . .]”, while minimizing layoffs.

The COVID-19 crisis has caused a tectonic shift in Canada’s public finances. On April 1, the Bank of Canada (BoC) began a major bond-buying program, following the tracks of the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. This sudden and dramatic shift in bank operations and strategy is the latest stage in the BoC’s relationship with government debt, financial markets, and the day-to-day lives of all Canadians.

TORONTO – The Bank of Canada (BoC) must “keep innovating” to help governments support jobs, protect public services, and address critical spending challenges through the COVID-19 era and beyond, says a new policy paper from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In our first issue following the outbreak of COVD-19 in Canada, Monitor contributors assess the federal and provincial government responses to date and propose how we might use this moment of government activism to fix the gross inequalities in our society—by improving social programs such as employment insurance, income assistance and our health care system, for example.

OTTAWA – As new federal policies are created and adapted to attempt to counter the worst-case economic impacts of COVID-19, new analysis today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) shows 862,000 unemployed workers will receive nothing from either Employment Insurance (EI) or the new Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).